Posted by Jerry Stuckle on 08/30/06 17:51

Yi Chen wrote:
> We have a drop down list on a PHP page, with several product names, and
> when people click one item, we will refresh the same page with the
> product name as parameter, and in turn we want to include a HTML file
> into the content area of the same page.
>
> I know it is recommended to put everything into database, but we want
> the web site to be very "portable", so the drop-downlist and the
> content should both in text files.
>
> Let's say the drop-down list will be poplulated from the product.txt
> file, and there will be a file for each corresponding item in the
> drop-down list. From the user point of view, if he wants to add a new
> product, he will just need to open the product.txt file, and add a new
> line with the product name, "Laptop", then add a new text file named
> "laptop" in the same folder which contains the HTML fragment to be
> included in the content area.
>
> What is the easiest way to do this?
>

I'd use a database. The vast majority of sites use MySQL for a
database, but if you want it to be portable you can use the PEAR::MDB2
package. It's portable to many different databases.

You could do it with a flat file, but it will make your job a lot harder
(and the data much more prone to errors).
--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

[Back to original message]